Disappearing Antigens and Unknown Cures
Written onI was about to create a video documenting a rather strange illness affecting Pipit and Whydah. However, before I even had time to set up a video, Pipit was resting happily in an almost fully recovered state. He flew the quarantine coop before I could stop him, although the illness went no further than him! It took some time to get him back to eating normally again, yet he survived. Poor Pipit. So far he had only fathered one egg, and was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. With him fully recovered, I supposed I could move onto Whydah and document her strange condition.
However, Whydah had escaped from the quarantine zone and came in contact with Manakin! I was ready to hunker down and prepare for another victim. Only Manakin wasn’t getting ill… And Whydah wasn’t coughing or sneezing like she had just minutes before. An icon popped up in the C1 Observation Kit, and I feared the worst. Was someone close to death, or even dead? On the contrary: Whydah was pregnant. I also noticed that she went from sick to healthy. I was utterly confused. Take a quick look at Whydah’s genetics, particularly her chemical reaction mutation. In a nutshell, she is unable to convert glycogen into glucose.
The reason why I thought this was going to be a disaster is because a Norn’s genetics state that antigens are fought off with antibodies. Yet to produce antibodies, a Norn must use a good bit of glucose. This is the reason why sick Creatures have their life forces drop: Their bodies are converting glycogen (long-term energy) into glucose (short-term energy) to handle an emergency situation. If antibodies build up quickly, glycogen does not decrease too much. The really dangerous illnesses utilize multiple antigens, or have corresponding antibodies that take a long time and a lot of glucose to produce. With no glucose in her system, Whydah would never be able to produce antibodies. Essentially, she should have been infected forever unless she could get a giant infusion of glucose.
Admittedly, this graph was taken somewhat late. Yet it shows antigen 2 falling. But… Where is antibody 2? Whydah still had none of it in her system, yet she fought off the illness anyway? I was baffled. It wasn’t like she ate a weed and had a small amount of toxins in her system. This was clearly an illness, with the telltale peaks of antigen production. Did Creatures 1 just throw some sort of tantrum and cure her of its own accord? I took no action, except to quarantine Pipit and Whydah away from the others. So there went the premise for that video! I was looking forward to documenting the way I monitor illnesses and help my Norns and Grendels recover. If anyone has ideas or thoughts on why Whydah was amazingly cured without any antibodies, please feel free to share! Perhaps it was a glitch?
I went with the explanation that Albia was just fed up with illnesses, and scared it away. Pipit was in much better health, and he snuggled up to Niltava with plenty of whispered secrets. Most likely it was a one-sided conversation about lemons and illnesses. Niltava seemed pretty bored, yet she was polite enough to listen… Or pretend to! She was still recovering from a recent pregnancy, but Pipit might have finally found himself in the right place for once. That idea was thrown out the window shortly thereafter. I was convinced that Pipit was cursed in every way. Poor Pipit! Suffice to say that there will be a Creatures 1 video coming soon! It might not have a happy ending, though… I left Pipit teetering on the edge of life and death. It was up to him to survive. Would he be able to?
I think what happened there is you got lucky and she coughed or sneezed the bacteria out of her body, then the antigen just decayed on its own… Contrary to popular belief, antibodies don’t directly break down antigens, they just (when high enough) get rid of the infectious bacteria that keep pumping those antigens and toxins into a sick norn.
But there’s another way to get rid of bacteria… besides being killed by enough of the proper antibody, they also have a small chance of getting moved out of their host when it coughs or sneezes, instead of just getting copied (the bacteria from Whydah likely stuck around the area, and evolved into that nasty bug that Pipit caught later on)
That can happen?! Well, guess I just learned something new about Creatures 1! I can’t remember another time when an illness wasn’t fought off by a high level of antibodies. It makes sense that sneezing and/or coughing would help expel the bacteria… I always thought it just led to some lovely contagious behavior.
Do the four unknown toxins measure the actual bacteria level? They’re rather mysterious and follow a similar pattern as antigens. Although not present 100% of the time, I wonder if they play some role. Another thing to look into the next time someone is ill! I’ll be watching the Science Kit like a hawk! Thanks for that excellent information!
hmm not sure, I think the bacteria themselves are just essentially invisible critter-like cobs that can attach to creatures, but I don’t know about those toxins, not sure what their role might be in C1. In c3, I know that bacteria evolve to pick out random toxins to put out within in a certain range, and c1 bacteria can evolve in a similar way… maybe they are just possible toxins in that random range of chemicals that a bacteria can evolve to put out, which haven’t really been implemented so you can kind of also give your own random effects to illnesses (or maybe just so they may evolve random effects from those toxins). I don’t think they currently do anything in their standard genetics, but I guess it’s also possible the game uses those levels for something else…
This is kind of interesting actually, this way you could have norns who evolve to have extra effects that other norns would not get in any form from the same illness… a bacteria might put out for example, unknown toxin 1, histamine b, and antigen 3, and you might have one norn that actually gets glucose from unknown toxin 1… so when sick with that bacteria, or any that put out that toxin, that norn doesn’t have to worry about food or energy to make antibodies, but other norns just sneeze and use up their energy.. this way you could even get norns who are specific carriers of only certain infections, or ones that get unusual symptoms from infections that barely affect anyone else.
Those are some great thoughts! I’ve been meaning to think up some ideas for genetic breeds in Creatures 1, and I might attempt to use some of this. With due credit, of course! The immune system actually is a complete mess, since it’s not exactly realistic. Certainly would be something interesting to at least try out with those unknown toxins!
I think an anger toxin might be interesting to mess with, and one that makes them feel hungry might even be helpful, because then they will want to eat more and that should help in making antibodies to fight off that bacteria.